Wireless communication has experienced explosive growth in recent years. As consumers and businesses rely more on their wireless devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless service providers, i.e., carriers, strive to provide additional functionality on these wireless devices. This additional functionality will not only increase the demand for wireless devices but also increase the usage among current users.
The environment of a wireless device creates unique challenges when one considers the execution of application on a wireless device. Methods of downloading the applications and removing the applications need to be developed. In addition, there is a need for security on the wireless device. Security concerns on the wireless device include controlling the environment the best way possible so that an application cannot, intentionally or unintentionally, degrade or corrupt other files on the wireless device or the network on which the wireless device communicates.
Applications, during execution, may perform various operations such as reading, writing, and modifying files stored on the device, or accessible to the device. These files can be system files used by the device, such as device drivers, other application files or data files.
It is desirable to control the application's access to other files accessible to the device as a security measure to limit any damage an application may have on the device, or other systems connected to the device. This damage may be intended via a virus on the application or may be unintended where the application executes with poorly written code that unintentionally dominates a resource, damages other applications or data.
Currently, the only method of controlling an application's access to storage area includes defining privilege levels to users. A user may be given a privilege level that allows the user to read, write or modify files in various storage areas. This mechanism only controls access at the user level.
This practice, however, does not allow the limiting of storage access based on the application executing. While the user itself may attempt to limit the application's access to storage, applications executed by the user are all given the same access to storage as is defined to the user. Furthermore, there is no mechanism to limit the application's access to storage outside of the control of the user.
Consequently, what is needed in the art is a system and method for limiting an application's access to storage. In addition, it is preferable that such limitation be established so that the device or user of the device be unable to change the access limitation imposed on the application.